VANCOUVER – Following public outcry at images of Vancouverpolice officers openly carrying assault rifles at public events like parades and street festivals, the Vancouver Police Department is defending the practice as an essential component of the war on Ferris Buellerism.

“We acknowledge that seeing officers openly carry military grade weaponry on the streets of a Canadian city can be jarring or triggering for some citizens,” VPD spokesperson Kurt Johannsen said, addressing a civilian complaint filed about the assault rifle policy. “But the alternative is allowing charismatic youths to hijack event sound systems and somehow get everyone in the area to participate in impromptu yet elaborately choreographed lip syncs that drive the crowd wild.”

While the police presented no evidence that officers armed with assault rifles have prevented any cases of Ferris Buellerism, they have pointed to the lack of incidents at events with officers so armed as proof that such weaponry is an effective deterrent.

“These magnetic teens are basically trickster gods,” Johannsen continued, “flitting in and out of other people’s lives, spreading chaos and joy in equal measure, never considering the damage they cause. As such, we reserve the right to shoot them on sight.”

The Vancouver Police Department has also recently started cracking down on parents forgetting their daughter’s sixteenth birthday and teenagers cutting up perfectly good prom dresses to make the scraps into hideous sartorial monstrosities unfit for human eyes.